One of the advantages (or curses) of studying a lot of old furniture is you can feel certain designs tug at you as you work on a piece. This weekend I got a little time to work on this Hall’s Croft chair and I could feel several other similar chair designs tug at my brain.
First, I abandoned the pine seat and switched to quartersawn sycamore for the seat, arms and crest. The spindles are hickory and the legs are beech. I selected the stock so I could use an oil and wax finish instead of paint or a dark pigmented finish.
I changed the seat profile slightly to make the front corners sharper. I altered the leg shape a bit. But the biggest change is going to be the crest rail. Instead of the “three holey mountains” of the original I’m going to use a different shape I’ve been experimenting with. It uses rived stock that is somewhat triangular in cross-section.
When I offer it for sale, I’ll give the customer both crest rails and let them decide which they prefer. Or they can swap them out when they are feeling sassy.
— Christopher Schwarz
I like the “rays” in the rived sycamore. Will it be pronounce on the crest rail?
The rays will be very prominent on the seat, crest and arms.
I have a 5′ sycamore log that tapers from ~18″ to ~12″ diameter… it was the upper part of the trunk so it won’t be super clean but do you guys think there’s anything worthy in this log, or is it firewood?
If you have a way to mill it, I’d say go for it. Sycamore is pretty damn tough to rive though. The grain interlocks like elm. It can be done with a big hammer and a lot of wedges but you’ll work for it and have a lot of waste (ask me how I know this). And I’ve used some sycamore from a big branch like you describe and didn’t find it to be all that much more difficult to work. YMMV, of course.
Agree. That’s exactly why I’m using it for the seat and the arm bow. The grain is interlocked and doesn’t rive. You can make some pretty tool handles with it.